Literary  Snapshots 

Impressions  of 
Contemporary  Authors 


RICHARD  BUTLER   GLAENZER 


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LITERARY 
SNAPSHOTS 

IMPRESSIONS  OF 
CONTEMPORARY  AUTHORS 


BY 

RICHARD  BUTLER  GLAENZER 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,    BY 
BRENTANO'S 


All  rights  reserved 


THE      PLIMPTON -PRESS 

NOBWOOD-MASS-U-S-A 


TO 

S.  B.  G. 

WHO   ENCOURAGED  ME 

TO  DEVELOP 
THESE   EXPERIMENTS 


To  The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  The  Bookman 
grateful  acknowledgment  is  made  for  the 
privilege  of  reprinting  Snapshots  which 
were  first  shown  in  these  magazines. 


A  FEW  REMARKS 

WHAT  would  you  have  called  them? 
Portraits?  Humour  forbid!  Sketches? 
Perhaps;  but  then  even  sketches  imply  the 
use  of  brush,  pencil  or  pen,  and  neither  oil, 
water-color,  graphite  nor  ink  was  employed 
in  their  primary  composition.  Surely  they 
aren't  engravings,  etchings,  lithographs  or 
woodcuts.  They  slipped  into  consciousness  too 
suddenly  and  much  too  vaguely  to  be  written 
on  steel  or  copper,  stone  or  even  wood.  They 
bubbled  into  being,  as  it  were,  under  skies 
of  an  amazingly  serene  blue,  but  skies  mis' 
chievous  for  all  that,  and  it  isn't  so  far  from 
the  truth  to  say  that  they  were  scratched  on 
sand,  the  sands  of  Bermuda,  with  a  brine- 
moist  twig  of  cedar.  The  incoming  tide  blurred 
many  an  impression,  made  some  of  the  char- 
acterizations read  like  skits,  others  like  senti- 
ments, a  few  like  pasquinades.  The  lot,  a 
heterogeneous  gathering,  were  photographed 
by  my  familiar  with  tongue  in  cheek. 

"Why  don't  you  publish  these  —  what-you- 
call-'ems?"  he  suggested. 

"As  what?  They  resemble  poems,"  said  I 
somewhat  lamely. 

"Do  they?"  he  chuckled. 

"Well,  they  don't  look  like  prose." 


"No,  they  don't."  A  very  ambiguous 
familiar  mine. 

"You  snapped  them,  so  I'll  call  them  Snap- 
shots," I  ventured. 

"Four  Snapshots?"  he  inquired.  Famili- 
arity from  familiars  is  to  be  expected,  one 
finds.  I  promised  him  due  credit.  He  ap- 
peared mollified. 

"Let  me  at  least  add  one  all  my  own." 
This  he  said  with  an  air  of  meekness  which 
should  have  warned  me. 

Here  it  is.  No  use  suppressing  it.  The 
monster  has  threatened  to  send  it  to  each  of 
the  snapshotees  (his  neologism)  if  I  do. 

YOURSELF 

Jack-of-few-trades, 

You  are  the  mistress  of  one, 

Book  Lore, 

The  oldest  and  youngest  of  the  Cyclops. 

He  has  enslaved  you, 

Made  you  his  handmaiden. 

Your  poetry  verges  on  prose, 

Your  prose  on  poetry. 

Without  me  you  are  nothing: 

With  me  you  are  only 

Yourself. 

RICHARD  BUTLER  GLAENZER 

NEW  YORK,  JANUARY,  1920 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

ENGLISH  AUTHORS: 

Hardy      17 

Galsworthy 18 

Wells 19 

Kipling 20 

Barrie 21 

Shaw 22 

Hewlett 23 

Moore.  —  I 24 

Moore.  —  II 25 

Bennett 26 

Locke 27 

G.  K.  C 28 

George 29 

Conrad 30 

Hope 31 

Stacpoole 32 

Quiller-Couch 33 

Lyons 34 

Dunsany 35 

Doyle 36 

Hudson 37 

Blackwood 38 

AMERICAN  AUTHORS: 

Howells 41 

Dreiser 42 

Wharton 43 

Tarkington 44 

James  Lane  Allen 45 

Deland 46 

Cable  . 47 

Hergesheimer 48 

CM  3 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Churchill 49 

Cobb 5° 

Morris 51 

W.  A.  White      52 

Atherton 53 

Wister 54 

FOREIGN  AUTHORS: 

France 57 

Loti      58 

RoIIand 59 

Maeterlinck 60 

Gorky 61 

Artzibashef 62 

Sudermann 63 

Schnitzler 64 

D'Annunzio 65 

Boyer 66 

LOLLYPOPS: 

Harold  Bell  Wright 69 

Florence  L.  Barclay 70 

Robert  W.  Chambers 71 

Elinor  Glyn 72 

Owen  Johnson 73 

Marie  Corelli 74 

Upton  Sinclair 75 

Frances  Hodgson  Burnett 76 

FLICKS  AT  PEGASUS 
THE  HELICONIANS: 

Bridges 79 

Watson 80 

Noyes 81 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Benet 82 

Yeats 83 

Le  Gallienne 84 

Sterling 85 

Kemp 86 

THE  NEOWHATS: 

Masefield 89 

Gibson 90 

De  la  Mare 91 

Lawrence 92 

Aiken 93 

Torrence 94 

Oppenheim 95 

Bynner 96 

THEMSELVES: 

Robinson 99 

Frost 100 

Teasdale 101 

Hueffer 102 

Masters 103 

Kreymborg 104 

Lindsay 105 

Eliot 106 

PRISONERS  OF  FREEDOM: 

Pound      109 

H.  D no 

Aldington in 

Fletcher 112 

Lowell 113 

Sandburg 114 

RILEY  (!N  MEMORIAM) 115 


ENGLISH    AUTHORS 


A. 


HARDY 


LN  English  oak 
Whose  leaves  have  so  long  listened 
To  the  winds  from  Stonehenge 
That  their  own  messages 
Are  tinged  with  Druid  sadness; 
But  what  a  stately  melancholy, 
A  noble  pensiveness 
That  hawthorn  blossoms  cannot  last, 
That  summer  must  come  claiming  at  the  end; 
And  then  autumn,  and  then  winter! 
The  golden  gorse  and  purple  heather 
Hearken  to  him  quite  as  rapt  as  we. 


GALSWORTHY 

unmistakably  the  gentleman 
That,  now  and  again, 
One  suffers  embarrassment 
On  being  led  to  Whitechapel 
Into  gaol  or  the  coal-pits. 
An  artist  hampered  a  bit 
By  his  Varsity  blazer, 
His  Varsity  accent, 
By  formulae  and  strings; 
An  artist,  a  genuine  artist, 
So  much  the  devotee  of  Nemesis, 
That  Sophocles  would  have  said: 
"  Behold  a  mind  of  amber!" 
But  first  and  last,  the  gentleman. 


r.183 


A 


WELLS 


SEER  under  a  brown  derby, 
With  ideas  so  outrageously  active 
That  they  leap-frog  over  one  another 
Straight  into  the  To-morrow. 
Guy  Fawkes  to  Mrs.  Grundy: 
Her  house  is  doomed; 
Her  daughters  fan  the  fuse, 
For  he  knows  their  quirks 
And  the  twists  of  their  antagonists  — 
Meaning  all  men. 
From  the  tragedies  and  comedies 
Of  his  own  up-hill  life, 
He  has  ferreted  out, 
Piece  by  piece, 
The  heart  of  realities. 
These  pieces  he  has  unblushingly 
Combined  and  recombined, 
And  cast  before  us, 

Bound  together  by  an  invincible  dream  - 
This  glorified  Mr.  Polly! 


T< 


SHAW 

PREFACE 


OM  was  born  blind.    Impeach  the  Past! 
Dick  is  pig-headed.     Stick  him! 
Harry's  a  muddler.    Thumbs  down! 
Joan,  as  usual,  has  the  best  of  Darby. 
Shakespeare?  .  .  . 

England,  good  old  junker  England  .... 
Christian  and  atheist,  Pietist  and  pagan, 
Every  last  man  of  them  is  wrong. 
I  am  not  the  last  man; 
So  —  come,  use  your  logic!" 

THE   PLAY 

An  inverted  pyramid 
Spinning  gyroscopically 
On  a  quicksand. 


C22J 


HEWLETT 

APESTRIES.  .  .  . 

Tapestries  such  as  Yseult 

Might  have  woven  for  Tristan; 

Arras  and  verdure,  Courts  of  Love; 

Cinque-cento  fantasies  and  grotesqueries. 

Tapestries  cunning  with  anachronisms: 

Venus  geared  with  a  pshem 

And  Mars  with  hauberk  and  cracowes. 

Tapestries  after  the  dark  cartoons 

Of  a  Stuart  Velasquez; 

Tapestries  smacking  of  sun-drenched  SoroIIa, 

Enamoured  of  the  gipsyings  of  Borrow. 

Tapestries  flowered,  tissued  and  purfled, 

Undulating  with  the  folds 

Charming  but  often  distortive 

Peculiar  to  tapestries. 


£233 


T< 


SHAW 

PREFACE 


OM  was  born  blind.    Impeach  the  Past  I 
Dick  is  pig-headed.     Stick  him! 
Harry's  a  muddler.    Thumbs  down! 
Joan,  as  usual,  has  the  best  of  Darby. 
Shakespeare?  .  .  . 

England,  good  old  junker  England  .... 
Christian  and  atheist,  Pietist  and  pagan, 
Every  last  man  of  them  is  wrong. 
I  am  not  the  last  man; 
So  —  come,  use  your  logic!" 

THE   PLAY 

An  inverted  pyramid 
Spinning  gyroscopically 
On  a  quicksand. 


HEWLETT 

APESTRIES.  .  .  . 

Tapestries  such  as  Yseult 

Might  have  woven  for  Tristan; 

Arras  and  verdure,  Courts  of  Love; 

Cinque-cento  fantasies  and  grotesqueries. 

Tapestries  cunning  with  anachronisms: 

Venus  geared  with  a  pshem 

And  Mars  with  hauberk  and  cracowes. 

Tapestries  after  the  dark  cartoons 

Of  a  Stuart  Velasquez; 

Tapestries  smacking  of  sun-drenched  SoroIIa, 

Enamoured  of  the  gipsyings  of  Borrow. 

Tapestries  flowered,  tissued  and  purfled, 

Undulating  with  the  folds 

Charming  but  often  distortive 

Peculiar  to  tapestries. 


£233 


MOORE.  —  I 

.E  will  grin 
To  hear  himself  called  English; 
And  would  knife  me  with  ridicule 
In  the  next  autobiography  — 
Were  I  famous  enough! 
A  master-critic  of  painting, 
But  when  he  dissects  and  lays  bare 
The  nerves  of  the  living, 
We  think  of  rabbits  and  guinea-pigs; 
And  when  he  dishes  up  the  rechauffe 
Of  his  own  follies, 

It  is  with  the  air  of  a  rake  of  fourteen, 
Standing  before  a  mirror, 
Smirking  his  hope  that  the  girls 
Will  believe  the  pimples  on  his  face 
A  sign  of  virility. 


MOORE.  —  II 

After  reading  "The  Brook  Kerith 


L 


/AYING  down  the  Gospel 
According  to  St.  George, 
I  marvel  greatly 
At  the  grave  beauty, 
The  rare  reality  of  the  work. 
Anything  may  be  said, 
I  find  myself  thinking, 
If  said  with  dignity 
In  a  detached  undertone. 


BENNETT 

rRIST-MILL  of  the  Five  Towns; 
Baker  of  so  many  loaves, 
So  finely  kneaded  and  so  large 
That  they  have  startled  America 
Into  overwhelming  him  with  praise; 
Brilliant,  versatile,  diffuse, 
With  an  amusing  nose 
For  the  picaresque; 
Perhaps  too  self-complacent, 
Like  his  mouth.  .  .  . 
Our  fault,  for  we  gild  our  laurels, 
Forgetting,  like  himself, 
That  his  is  "the  way  of  all  flesh." 


LOCKE 

ERE  Anatole  France 
Not  so  erudite,  less  the  cynic  — 
No,  there  is  the  golden  margin 
Of  a  dream. 

The  strength  that  hides  in  weakness, 

The  daring  of  diffidence, 

The  wisdom  of  the  fool, 

Roused  by  the  wand  of  his  chivalry, 

Transform  existence 

Into  the  brave  romance  we  know  it  to  be 

When  young. 


I 


G.  K.  C. 


S  it  for  himself  or  the  people 
That  he  sets  off  these  fireworks? 
One  sees  him  materialize  from  the  shadows 
A  Brobdingnag  pygmy  or  a  Lilliput  giant 
Jovially  cursitating  in  the  moidering  flare 
Of  pinwheels  that  whiz  back  on  themselves, 
Or  silhouetted  against  Gargantuan  set-pieces 
Whose     knights    become    windmills;      whose 

anarchists,  kings. 

There  is  always  the  titillating  dread 
Of  his  patting  or  clutching  too  long 
The  tail  of  some  hair-trigger  sky-rocket. 
Would  it  burst  and  bemuse  him  with  suns 
Or  lift  him  and  land  him  in  — 
Mystical  earwigs, 

What    thimblerig    Heaven,   what   Amalthsean 
Hell? 


£283 


A 


GEORGE 


SEVENTH  son  of 
L'esprit  de  France  and  England's  humour; 
Foster-child  of  a   grimly   gentle   Castilian 
Ready    with    Moorish    proverbs    but    most 

simpdtica 

(The  Spanish  is  untranslatable); 
His  governess  surely  a  sailor's  daughter 
Who  has  dabbled  in  all  the  arts; 
His  tutor  the  self-made  H.  G.  Wells; 
Eve,  his  first  sweetheart; 
Then  all  of  the  lovely  ladies 
Whom  Villon  laments  — 
Never  was  hand  more  tender 
When  dealing  with  women, 
More  just  in  the  weighing  of  men. 


CONRAD 

oj  comet's  hair! 
The  image  was  born 
Because  it  would  be  needed 
To  do  service  to  his  vaulting  subleties. 
Poet-explorer  of  all  seas,  all  jungles, 
Whether  of  earth  or  of  the  microcosm: 
Who  has  sailed,  from  seaman  to  master, 
All  the  ships  of  his  art; 
And  made  through  love  and  loyalty 
The  landfall,  Truth. 


C303 


HOPE 

HESE  unmapped  principalities 
Outlast  Balkan  kingdoms 
And  are  less  merciful. 
They  seized  you  for  ransom 
The  moment  you  used  them 
To  capture  England's  fancy. 
They  refuse  to  release  you 
Though  you  have  paid  time  and  again 
In  sterling  British  gold. 
You  remain  prisoner  of  Zenda. 


£31] 


STACPOOLE 

XvUFFLING  the  glassy  surface 
Are  the  fingers  of  gigantic  currents. 

For  the  eye,  bizarre  beauty; 

For  the  ear,  exotic  cadences 

Which  disturb,  by  degrees  sound  normal, 

Only  to  murmur,  insidiously  murmur: 

Fingers,  delicate  but  resistless, 

Move  under  the  surface, 

Snap  under  the  surface, 

Under  the  surface  .  .  . 


R< 


QUILLER-COUCH 


.OMANCER,  fanciful  chronicler, 
The  buccas  of  Cornwall 
Have  mumbled  to  you  deep  grim  tales 
And  the  fairies  of  all  lands 
Hummed  their  most  witching  ones. 

Because  you  loved  them, 
Dry-as-dust  parchments 
Have  exhaled  a  living  past 
And  faded  missals 
Illuminated  your  pen 
Till  it  glows  like  Stevenson's. 


C333 


A.  NEIL  LYONS 

HROUGH  your  jocosity 
Rumbles  a  litany  of  rage 
Whose  echo  is  despair; 
For  they  are  blind,  your  actors; 
Stumbling  against  impediments 
Sketched  by  Hogarth; 
Pawning  for  sixpenny  pieces 
The  diamond  necklaces  of  their  birthright; 
Rats  in  the  wheel-cage  of  Cockneydom 
Which  during  April  only, 
When  the  daffodils  dream, 
Is  the  Land  of  Cockaigne. 


C343 


DUNSANY 

JLlOW  often  has  one  man  created  gods 
Grand  as  the  gods  which  Nature  shaped  for 

men 

When  men  believed  in  gods 
And  gods  in  man? 
Your  gods  are  godlike, 
Grim,  sublime,  austere; 
Your  wonders,  wonderful. 
I  dreamed  the  other  night 
You  were  a  god  in  exile. 
I  dream  that  dream  awake. 


I 


DOYLE 


T'S  no  use! 
The  knights  of  your  White  Company 
And  Rodney  Stone 
And  the  gallant  Brigadier  Gerard 
Have  put  up  a  good  fight; 
But  it's  no  use. 
That  fellow  Sherlock 
Will  squeeze  you  like  a  sponge. 
Talk  about  Frankensteins.  .  .  . 


W.  H.  HUDSON 

'N  mare's  milk  and  wild  honey, 
On  the  eggs  of  eagles, 
On  brews  of  bittersweet 
From  the  pampas  and  sierras, 
From  jungle  and  gray  wilderness, 
Were  you  nurtured,  surely; 
Among  scenes  spacious  and  untamed, 
Splendid  in  their  naturalness, 
Which,  for  a  flash  of  your  eyes, 
You  make  us  see,  feel,  be, 
Till  cities  shrink  to  the  stuff 
Of  cramped  nightmares. 


C373 


ALGERNON  BLACKWOOD 

CjREAT  spirit, 

By  what  chance 

Were  you  imprisoned  in  flesh? 

Or  did  you  plead 

To  serve  as  interpreter 

Between  us  and  the  fairies 

And  the  fauns  and  the  angels 

And  the  AII-in-AII 

Which  is  God? 


AMERICAN  AUTHORS 


O 


HOWELLS 


TEN-EYED,  open-hearted,  open-souledl 
So,  sun,  moon  and  stars 
Have  flooded  you  with  their  light 
And  their  light's  vision. 

These  states  stand  united 
Through  wisdom  like  yours: 
Wisdom  of  the  open-eyed 
Allowing  for  blindness; 
Wisdom  of  the  open-hearted 
Allowing  for  meanness; 
Wisdom  of  the  open-souled 
Allowing  for  self-deceit. 


Y 


DREISER 


OU,  at  least,  have  provoked 
Opinion. 

How  many,  how  many, 
Have  done  more  than  sneak  along 
The  groove  of  tradition? 

You,  at  least,  have  created 

Two  women  and  one  man 

Who  cannot  die. 

How  many,  how  many 

Can  preserve  their  own  puny  souls 

From  living  a  daily  death? 


WHARTON 

IGNETTESrin  metallic  tones 
On  crackled  olive  black  — 
The  more  modern, 
The  more  essentially  i8th  Century 
As  stimulating 
But  as  out  of  key 
As  the  Princess  de  Lamballe 
Discoursing  at  a  The  Dansant. 
Exquisite  as  a  border 
For  a  black-glazed  Golden  Bowl! 


£433 


TARKINGTON 

FAIRY  tales, 

Bully  old  fairy  tales: 

Cinderella 

Coaxed  from  Heliopolis 

To  Indianapolis; 

The  Beast  turned  Barber 

And  Beauty  —  Manicure? 

And  now  young  Jack  the  Giant-killer, 

Death  to  all  grown-ups! 

Fairy  tales, 

Corking  old  fairy  tales, 

Old  only  as  spring  is  old 

Or  dawn  is  old 

Or  humour  or  love. 


£443 


c 


JAMES  LANE  ALLEN 
OLOR  and  music,  music  and  color! 


At  one  with  the  rhythm  of  the  Universe, 
You  know  that  the  heart  of  all  youth 
Is  the  heart  of  the  Seeker,  of  Earth, 
Advancing,  eternally  advancing, 
Swinging,  rapturously  swinging, 
Between  the  Sun's  golden  huzza 
And  the  silver-white  song  of  the  moon. 


C453 


DELANO 

.OW  thrilling  but  hard 
For  the  spirit  of  old  New  England 
To  act  young, 
For  the  rock  to  compromise 
With  the  moss, 
Warm  heart  of  a  woman 
Smiling  through  granite  lips. 


£46] 


T< 


CABLE 


O  read  your  tales 
Is  like  opening  a  cedar-box 
Of  ante-bellum  days, 
A  box  holding  the  crinoline  and  fan 
And  the  tortoise-shell  diary, 
With  flowers  pressed  between  the  leaves, 
Belonging  to  some  languid  grande  dame 
Of  Creole  New  Orleans. 


£47] 


I 


HERGESHEIMER 


F  an  image-maker  of  Ravenna  or  Mt.  Athos 
Had  been  reborn  in  this  New  World 
After  a  brief  sojourn  in  Cathay; 
Had  been  reborn  in  drab-and-gaudy  America 
And  written  of  it,  haunted  by  his  past, 
His  work,  like  yours, 
Would  be  a  glazed  mosaic 
Glowing  with  sapphire,  ruby  and  emerald 
Outlined  with  black  onyx, 
A  reserved  composition 
Embodying  figures  lifelike  yet  symbolical, 
Facet-forms  of  a  universe 
Too  deep  for  the  vulgar  eye. 


C483 


CHURCHILL 

\VlTH  so  many  "C"s 
As  crutches, 

You  should  have  escaped 
The  corral  of  Culture; 
Yet  I  cannot  encounter  you 
Without  considering 
Your  consanguinity  with 
Mrs.  Humphrey  Ward. 


Y< 


COBB 


OU'RE  tremendously  funny, 
I  suppose; 

But  some  of  us  like  our  humour 
In  thin  slices 

And  lose  the  edge  of  our  appetites 
At  a  barbecue. 
Your  grimness  is  convincing 
And  your  prolificacy 
(Or  is  it  prolixity?), 
Like  the  range  of  your  vocabulary, 
Simply  overwhelming. 
Beware  of  pernicketiness  transmogrified! 


[503 


MORRIS 

.ORE  modern  than  Masters, 
More  ancient  than  Blondel  de  Nesle, 
You,  born  a  minstrel, 
Have  cheated  the  gold  of  your  songs, 
Casting  it  in  odd  little  idols 
Plated  with  steel  and  with  brass. 

But  the  gold  is  too  hot: 
Again  and  again  it  burns  through 
In  spite  of  that  cynical  self 
Which  isn't  yourself! 


WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE 

HERE  was  a  certain  plain-spoken  boy 
In  our  Latin  Class  at  boarding-school. 
He  hailed  from  Lyon  Co.,  Kansas; 
And  we  kids  loved  to  josh  him 
By  inflecting  the  Latin  for  "bad" 
As  mains,  Emporia,  pessimist. 
His  retorts  had  us  skinned  a  mile 
When  it  came  to  straightforward  U.S.A. 
Nevertheless,  we  considered  ourselves 
The  natural  trustees  of  Old  Glory. 
Times  have  changed  since  '90: 
The  East  is  on  the  wrong  side  of 
Two  and  seventy-five  per  cent  Americanism. 
You  folks  west  of  the  Missouri 
Have  the  backbone,  horse  sense 
And  old-fashioned  sentiment 
Needed  to  pull  us  through; 
And  you,  old-timer,  have  done  the  most 
To  make  us  think  so. 


ATHERTON 

CALIFORNIAN  opulence, 

West  Coast  hatred  of  shams, 

Cosmopolitan  vision, 

Are  the  horses  of  the  chariot 

You  drive  so  recklessly 

In  the  amphitheatre  of  Public  Opinion; 

Challenging  Philistine  and  Puritan, 

Nine-eyed  Censor  and  pursy  Reformer 

With  the  same  sense  of  world  citizenship 

And  recognition  that  good  and  evil 

Are  common  to  us  all 

As  was  shown,  with  fewer  feathers, 

By  your  great  kinsman,  Ben  Franklin. 


Ti 


WISTER 


HE  moderation  of  your  humour 
Is  an  unmixed  blessing 
To  jazz-racked  city  ears. 
A  Bret  Harte  without  a  formula, 
A  pragmatist  without  a  pose, 
A  Dixie-lover  without  a  drawl, 
A  sportsman  to  the  core, 
You  have  a  land-wide  following 
Whose  only  complaint  is 
That  you're  too  close-mouthed. 


FOREIGN  AUTHORS 


FRANCE 

HE  sanctum  of  your  mind 
Must  be  an  enchanting  spot 
For  eclectics  to  luxuriate: 
Athanasius  communing  with  Renan, 
Joan  of  Arc  gossiping  with  Thais, 
Rabelais  jesting  with  Paracelsus  — 
A  gathering  gorgeous  with  irony 
But  manipulated  without  discords 
Like  a  Liszt  fantasy 
Played  by  Joseph  Hofmann. 


C573 


I 


,  TOO,  have  seen  the  fishing  fleet 
Come  home  to  Paimpol 
And  the  wives  and  the  mothers 
Bravely 'prepared  for  the  worst. 
And  I  have  been  in  the  graveyard 
Where  are  buried  only  women 
And  children  and  very  old  men; 
And  there  I  bowed  to  you, 
Poet  of  the  others, 
The  husbands  and  the  sons 
Who  went  down  fighting  like  Frenchmen. 


HOLLAND 

HEY  are  our  intimates 
As  well  as  yours, 
A  human  family 
Humming  fragmentary  Credos 
To  give  themselves  courage 
Through  the  wild  humoresque  of  life. 
At  their  side, 
Yet  somehow  high  above, 
You  smile  sadly 
Like  one  from  Nazareth. 


C593 


I 


MAETERLINCK 


T  is  thrilling  but  terrible 
To  wander  through  the  vaults, 
The  echo-haunted  crypts 
Of  your  Fomorian  imagination. 

It  is  maddening,  crushing, 
To  see  the  blind  grope  hopelessly, 
To  hear  the  dumb  choking  for  speech 
And  to  be  utterly  helpless. 

Drops  oozing  from  the  corbels 
Eat  slowly  into  our  temples 
Like  water  dripping  on  stone. 

We  know  the  joy  of  children 

Released  from  a  closet, 

When  carried  to  heaven  by  your  bees. 


C603 


GORKY 

OU  drive  your  pen 
As  if  it  were  a  troika, 
Its  three  horses, 
Czar,  bureaucrat  and  priest; 
Your  words  crack  like  whips 
As  you  gallop  along 
Tearing  off  ukases, 
Ditching  uniforms, 
Ripping  out  icons, 
While  shouting  to  the  moujiks 
To  stop  skulking  in  the  willows. 


W. 


ARTZIBASHEF 


IND  across  the  steppes, 
Each  gust  demolishing  some  part 
Of  the  House  of  Convention 
And  loosening  some  other 
Until  the  whole  of  it  is  in  ruins 
And  its  inmates  are  driven 
Out  into  the  open 
To  make  friends  at  last 
With  the  rain  and  sun  and  air, 
Their  natural  brothers, 
And  their  father, 
The  soil. 


C623 


A 


SUDERMANN 


DARK  gray  skiff 
Drifting  down  a  roiled  river 
Under  low  damp  bridges; 
With  leaves  falling, 
Scattered  here  and  there 
By  moaning  autumn  winds, 
Tossed  before  the  skiff 
To  be  muddied  and  sunk. 


C633 


SCHNITZLER 

LS  cleverly  as  a  surgeon's  scalpel 
You  lay  bare  their  hearts, 
Or  what  we  call  our  hearts 
When  suffering  from  the  same  ailment. 
The  difference  is 
You  chuckle  all  the  time. 
It  may  be  a  joke, 
But  it's  a  cruel  joke 
Which  the  victims  can  no  more  prevent 
Than  the  sun  his  spots 
Or  the  moon  her  allurement  and  servitude. 


C643 


D'ANNUNZIO 

1  OU  have  come  centuries  too  late! 
You  should  have  reigned  as  Prince 
In  Antioch  of  the  Garden  of  Daphne 
Or  as  Duke  of  Byzantine  Athens 
Or  have  lorded  it  in  Sicily, 
That  blue-domed  glittering  mosaic 
Of  all  the  ancient  worlds; 
With  some  daggered  Cellini 
To  fix  your  esurient  reveries 
In  gold,  ivory  and  precious  stones. 

Years  after,  Webster  of  St.  Andrews 
Would  have  devised  a  play  about  you, 
"Gabriele,  or  the  Scarlet  Angel." 


£653 


BOJER 

OPIRIT  cousin  of  John  Davidson, 
That  life-crucified  Scotchman 
Who  skirted  the  great  hoax  with 
"Dogmas  are  frozen  metaphors," 
Your  wanderings  have  carried  you 
Forward  —  or  backward  — 
Leagues  further  than  he. 
Meditating  on  the  dizzy  ledge 
Of  some  narrow,  deep-gnawing  fiord, 
With  the  midnight  sun  in  your  eyes, 
You  have  discovered  this: 
Man  must  be  his  own  Balder 
And  defeat  black-hearted  Loki 
By  whispering  in  his  own  ear: 
"Sow  corn  in  my  enemy's  field, 
That  Light  may  exist." 


C663 


LOLLYPOPS 


HAROLD  BELL  WRIGHT 


Y< 


OU  believe  in  God, 
And  are  not  ashamed  of  it. 

You  believe  in  good, 

And  are  not  ashamed  of  it. 

One  can  see  this 

In  the  quality  of  your  taffy, 

Old-fashioned  home-pulled  stuff 

Easy  enough  to  make 

If  one  knows  how. 

How  many  do? 

And  it  seems  to  be  the  best  seller. 


£69] 


FLORENCE  L.  BARCLAY 


I 


NCOMPARABLE  confectioner 
Of  Cyrilesque  heroes 
In  immaculate  white  flannels, 
Of  virginal  Amazons 
Too  intelligent  "  to  know." 
Your  very  quotes  are  pearls, 
O  Sugar-Lady  to  the  teens 
Of  all  ages  and  sexes 
That  cry  out  in  horror: 
"Avaunt,  Satan!" 


ROBERT  W.  CHAMBERS 

CURATORS  of  Museums, 

Mme.  Blavatsky,  Zenobia, 

All  of  the  precieuses 

Were  simps 

To  the  slender  demure  young  things 

Who  hold  forth  naively 

Against  your  sophisticated  backgrounds. 

One  wants  to  warn  the  attractive  villain 

To  have  a  care 

And  the  "intended"  to  sit  on  ice  — 

Films  are  so  inflammable! 


C7O 


ELINOR  GLYN 

Y  OUR  males  are  perfect  ladies; 
Your  females,  perfect  terrors, 
Petticoat  Casanovas 
Saved  by  asterisks 
From  being  pilloried 
Or  Comstockized 
Like  the  out-and-out  sinners 
Of  naturalism. 


C723 


OWEN  JOHNSON 

JJALZAC  did  it  much  better 

And  so  did  Gunter; 

But  then  one  was  the  master  of  character 

And  the  other,  of  plot  — 

However,  it  pays  to  advertise. 


£733 


MARIE  CORELLI 

AT  is  all  too  utterly  utter 

And  too  immensely  immense. 

On  the  other  hand, 

If  World  Fairs  and  Luna  Parks 

Are  your  aim, 

You  ring  the  gong 

Nine  times  out  of  ten. 


C743 


UPTON  SINCLAIR 

LoLLYPOPPISH 
Though  advertised 
As  pepsin. 

De  gustibus  .  .  .  but 
Neither  the  Upper  Ten 
Nor  Submerged  Tenth 
Recognize  themselves 
In  the  little  mirror 
Of  your  vanity  case. 

Zola  concealed  himself. 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT 


HROUGH  you 
The  Pelion  of  New  Thought 
Is  piled  on  the  Ossa  of  optimism: 
You  are  a  Comfort 
To  the  Poor  Working  Girl, 
Though  perhaps  dearest 
As  a  novelized  Burke's  Peerage. 

Your  connection 

With  the  De  Willoughby  Claim 

Is  an  association 

To  be  proud  of. 


£76] 


FLICKS  AT  PEGASUS 

THE   HELICONIANS 


BRIDGES 

.LOVER  of  flowers  that  fade  — 
Nay,  lover  of  faded  flowers, 
Delicate  rare  flowers  of  the  Past, 
Flowers  consecrate  to  Eros, 
Jessamy  of  Araby  and  myrrh! 
Chaste  lover,  dream-lover, 
Shadow  of  Lycidas,  "  freak'd  with  jet," 
Deaf  to  the  grating  Iron  Muse: 
Lover  of  all  beauteous  things  I 


C793 


WATSON 

Y  OURS  were  rich  wood-wind  notes, 
Soothing,  noble,  ennobling, 
Leading  us  to  Pan. 

Why  famish  for  applause? 
Why  enlist  with  Rage? 

Flutes  squeak 

When  blown  like  trumpets. 


NOYES 

OIR  Knight  in  Golden  Armour 

Who  hate  violence, 

Minstrel  of  Golden  Peace 

Who  praise  Drake, 

Which  way  does  your  steed  charge, 

Which  way  your  galleon  sail 

This  side  the  stars? 


I 


BENET 


NTO  the  East 
You  prick  your  blooded  courser, 
A  falcon  on  your  wrist 
Or  a- wing  in  your  jeweled  heavens; 
Before  your  eyes 
A  rapturous  vision. 


C82] 


YEATS 

JEWELER  of  the  Gray 
That  was  wind  among  the  reeds, 
Water  lapping  on  the  shore 
In  the  moth-hour.  .  .  . 
That  was  beryl  and  chrysoberyl 
Glimmering  in  the  midnight.  .  .  , 
That  wandered  with  Oisin  — 
What  has  broken  the  vase? 
The  shards  no  longer  combine. 


£83] 


B. 


LE  GALLIENNE 


IEAUTY  and  duty 
Are  strangers  forever," 
You  have  sung  in  a  moment 
Of  passionate  loneliness; 
And  the  lover  of  beauty 
You  always  will  be. 
And  your  tributes  to  beauty 
Roll  sweet  on  the  tongue 
And  stir  the  jaded  nerves 
And  warm  the  sluggish  heart. 
They  are  rich  amber  wines 
From  a  golden  age 
In  a  period  of  wood  alcohol. 


M. 


STERLING 


.AUGRE  adamantine  resolves 
You  suffer  deliciously 
From  the  thorns  of  the  phantom  rose. 
Celebrant  of  the  constellations, 
Orpheus  of  the  stellar  suns, 
Your  lyre  was  drawing  Eurydice 
From  Hades  unto  Edenic  vales 
When  you  lost  faith,  gazed  back 
And  forfeited  her  forever. 
Magic  wines  have  not  availed 
To  inocclude  your  piteous  soul, 
Nor  evanescent  raptures 
To  unsepulchre  your  heart. 
Shadows  of  the  sevenfold  Past 
Fall  athwart  your  orchideal  paeans: 
You  are  cinctured  in  gentle  sadness. 


£85] 


KEMP 

.0,  singer  of  white  and  gold, 
Wanderer  with  Jason  to  Colchis, 
To  ^aea  with  Odysseus.  .  .  . 
Un-fanging  the  dragon,  Life, 
By  chanting  Cytherean  spells.  .  .  . 
Disarming  the  very  Sirens 
With  Paphian  incantations. 
Carver  of  chryselephantine  lays, 
Sung  lustily,  face  to  the  wind.  .  .  . 
Bold  keel  to  the  blue-veined  surge, 
Anadyomene,  changeable  as  the  moon. 
From  the  first  dawn  to  the  last 
Vagabond,  minstrel,  Cyprogene! 


C86H 


FLICKS  AT  PEGASUS 

THE   NEO-WHATS 


W, 


MASEFIELD 


KITING  of  the  sea, 
Your  words  leap  up,  a  song; 
And  the  song  weds  Earth  to  Heaven; 
And  from  them  is  born 
The  failure  that  is  success, 
Dauber! 

Writing  of  the  earth, 

Your  words  bake  a  pot; 

And  the  pot  reeks  with  stale  beer. 

Writing  of  God, 
Your  words  slip  into  a  noose; 
And  the  noose  strangles 
Your  song! 


[893 


GIBSON 

A^EN  before  the  War 
Your  work  seemed  "dug  in," 
Khaki-colored. 
Once  in  a  while, 
A  star-shell 
Beautiful  as  a  flower; 
But  even  that 
Discloses  sordor, 
Ruin  and  death. 


DE  LA  MARE 

JLlKE  the  needlework  hangings 
Of  times  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean, 
Figures  all  but  primitive 
Peering  from  garth  and  close; 
Like  the  samplers  of  lavender  days, 
Mellow,  grave  with  sentiment, 
Playing  on  forgotten  heart-strings; 
Like  the  violet  shadows 
On  walls  of  sunken  gardens. 


LAWRENCE 

X  OU  are  a  turret 
Rising  above  the  domes 
Of  the  palace  of  Eros, 
A  turret  whose  stairs 
Wind  ever  so  steeply 
In  pursuit  of  light. 

At  every  landing 
Your  passions  beat  hot 
Against  the  windows; 
But  you  crush  them  back 
And  resume  the  ascent 
In  a  torment  of  hope. 


Y< 


AIKEN 


OUR  moods  evolve  a  music 
Which  makes  dumb  matter  sing; 
And  the  echoes  of  these  songs 
Surge  back  in  a  dozen  keys, 
Some,  delicate  and  sweet  — 
Virginal  kisses; 
Some,  sharp  and  scornful  — 
A  spinsterlike  bitterness; 
Some,  deep  and  caressing  — 
The  magic  of  fulfillment. 


£933 


TORRENCE 

.T  IRST,  you  offer  sackcloth  to  my  soul, 

Plunging  it  into  the  crypt, 

And,  with  vague  rites,  chasten  it; 

Then,  flooding  it  with  light 

From  a  rose-window, 

Lead  it  to  the  high  altar 

Before  which  swings  the  thurible 

Of  your  dreams. 


C943 


OPPENHEIM 

Y  OUR  opulence  of  phrase 
Is  magnificent; 

Bathsheba  could  not  have  withstood  you 
But  when  the  son  of  Jesse 
Hasted  against  Goliath, 
He  took  a  stone 
And  slang  it. 

For  the  fighter,  the  stone; 
For  the  singer,  the  harp! 


£95] 


BYNNER 

'H,  you  have  charm  enough; 
But  yours  is  not  simplicity 
So  much  as  archness 
Steeped  in  the  sly  conceits 
And  slyer  metaphysics 
Of  Donne  and  Suckling. 
Led  by  the  Shropshire  Lad, 
Your  love  of  him  sets  you  free 
And  you  sing  like  Herrick; 
Wheedled  back  by  ambition, 
You  aim  to  express  the  New  World. 
No  tinkling,  charming  in  itself, 
Can  reflect  or  interpret 
Problems  demanding  a  Browning. 


C963 


FLICKS  AT  PEGASUS 
THEMSELVES 


ROBINSON 


.OPE  and  Fear 
Calmly  debating 
In  close-knitted, 
Philosophic 
Jingle  rhymes 
The  footprint 
On  the  sand. 


C993 


FROST 

OOMETHING   there   is   of  power  in   one's 

name 

That  tends  to  shape  one's  life  by  love  of  it 
Or  hate  or  resignation. 

A  silver  grayness 

Films  the  slow  sureness  of  your  speech  — 

That  which  was  not 

Grips  mightily 

And  goes  digging  down,  down, 

Coldly,  after  its  nature, 

Into  the  roots  of  things. 


C  ioo 


Yc 


TEASDALE 


OU  are  the  voice 
Crowning  the  joyous  embrace 
Of  Cupid  and  Psyche: 
Voice  of  triumphant  surrender 
Whose  undertones 
Are  the  murmur  of  leaves 
To  the  earth, 
Whose  overtones 
Are  the  singing  of  birds 
To  the  dawn. 


Y< 


HUEFFER 


OU  paint  with  words, 
Paint  Heavens  and  Hells  and  Earths 
With  words  of  red  and  blue  and  green 
Orange  and  gray  and  black 
Like  an  ancient  cosmographer 
Reborn  as  a  friend  of  Blake's, 
Reborn  again  as  your  Self 
With  impressions  too  vast 
For  a  page  to  picture. 


£102] 


A 


MASTERS 


MOVIE-CAMERA  is  needed 
To  make  even  a  snapshot 
Of  a  mind  so  nimble. 
The  arc  of  your  vision 
Extends  from  Before  till  After. 
Your  vivid  intimations 
Flicker  and  flash  and  glow 
Like  heat-lightning 
Through  the  sultry  night 
Of  our  misunderstanding. 


C  103 


T 


KREYMBORG 


HEY  climb  too  high 
For  mushrooms. 

They  possess  the  shapely  slenderness, 
The  crisp  nervous  movement, 
Of  white  birches 
That  laugh  with  the  wind. 


C  104  3 


LINDSAY 

To  be  mumbled  darkly  as  at  the  Movies 


Trombones 

very 
delicately 


Tom-toms 

and 

sbak-sbaks 
fastidiously 


Kazoos 
can  amore 


OAY,  are  you  deef? 

Such  bellowing  cracks  Heaven 

And  J  ...  A  ...  R  ...  S,  jars, 

Old  Atlas,  Pleione 

And  the  peachy  Seven. 

In  Brobdingnag  the  tympanum 

Of  Beauty  may  be  like  a  drum; 

But  H  ...  E  ...  R  ...  E,  here, 

I  eastward-of-Chicago  fear, 

Although  we  love  your  stuff, 

Enufs  enough!  !!!...! 

Diminuendo  to  a  dulcet  fanfare 


ELIOT 

VyNE'S  intellect  chuckles  all  the  way  through 

And  hopes  that  Wells  and  George  and  Swin- 
nerton 

Have  not  missed  anything  that  you  have 
written; 

For  you  have  points  in  common  with  all 
three, 

Being,  first  and  foremost,  a  novelist-realist, 

Who  has  resorted  to  rhythm,  rhyme,  counter- 
point 

To  strike  a  happy  medium  between  music 
and  prose. 

On  second  thoughts,  your  works  are  tone 
poems 

To  accompany  certain  haunting  musical  varia- 
tions 

In  C  minor  and  E  flat  major,  not  yet  com- 
posed. 


06: 


FLICKS  AT  PEGASUS 

PRISONERS   OF   FREEDOM 


POUND 

/ounsfecoac  estiro  eder  ximinoa, 
Balis  ere  setascoa  —  Basque  Proverb. 

.ANG  them  all,  I  say  too, 
For  sniffing  at  a  god's  heels 
At  every  turnstile! 

Oime!  OI/KH!  Ah-eh!  and  Aie-e! 

Still,  nom  c/'un  cbien, 

There's  the  jungle  of  Zansar, 

The  Popol  Vuh  and  Ko-ji-Ki 

In  which  to  lose  them; 

Or  Gombo  Zhebes  to  throw  them  off, 

Se  il  cor  ti  manca. 


C  109  J 


T. 


H.  D. 


HE  teeth  of  your  spirit 
have  bitten  me: 
my  mind  is  a  desert 
afraid  of  the  pools. 
They  mirror  froth 
and  the  arrows 
of  date-palms. 


T. 


ALDINGTON 


RUTH  .  .  .  Beauty  .  .  . 
Duarchs  of  a  thousand  facets  .  .  .  ! 

Since  both  are  your  faith, 
Why  make  difference 
Their  religion, 
And  leanness 
Its  priest? 

"Thou  shalt  not  make  unto  thee 
Any  graven  image: 
Thou  shalt  not  bow  down  thyself 
To  them,  nor  serve  them." 

No  matter  what  your  god, 
For  dogmatists 
God  is  a  jealous  God. 
Be  sure  of  that! 


Cm] 


Ti 


FLETCHER 


HE  shimmering  leaves  of  nasturtiums 
Swing  like  lanterns  in  the  hot  night  air: 
While  over  the  roofs 
Blue  stars  play  hop-scotch  with  each  other. 

Like  frightened  chickens 

Blobs  of  moonlight  freckle  the  terrace 

Bistre  and  bice  and  puce. 

I  am  a  shimmering  dewdrop 

Cuddled  soft  by  the  crisp  nasturtiums  — 

But  explain  it  to  me  I 


LOWELL 

Not  James  Russell 

W  HEN  you  came  you  were  like  spice  and 

lightning 

And  the  mixture  splintered  the  Back  Bay  fog. 
Now  you  are  like  Biglow 
Doing  the  fox  trot. 
I   hardly  hear  you  at  all,   for   I   follow  your 

measures; 
But  I  am  completely  astonished. 


SANDBURG 

HEN  you  pluck  your  lyre, 
Though  it's  hacked  from  an  ox-skull 
And  strung  with  bull-tendons, 
With  the  finger-tips 
Of  your  five  senses, 
Dream  music  gushes  out; 
But  when  you  use  for  plectrum 
A  butcher's  cleaver, 
The  bull  in  the  china-shop 
Tosses  you  his  laurels. 


RILEY 

IN   MEMORIAM 

V>*HILDREN  love  you,  and  old  men! 

Swimmin'  holes  are  mighty  refreshin' 
And  there's  nothin*  to  beat 
An  old-fashioned  chuckle 
For  clearing  cobwebs. 

Some  pumpkin,  some  pumpkin  — 
The  feller  that  just  naturally  wins 
The  love  of  children  and  old  men 
Don't  have  to  watch  out. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  047  362     9 


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